Article type
Abstract
Background: A social innovation (SI) is an emergent approach to addressing complex problems around the delivery of healthcare services in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). For successful SI to happen, effective and sustainable community engagement and dialogue throughout the entire process are vital. However, empirical evidence is scarce on how to effectively engage communities in SI in low- and middle-income countries.
Objective: To identify and synthesize empirical evidence surrounding community engagement in SI practices and lessons in healthcare delivery in SSA.
Methods: All types of evidence (published articles and grey literature) published/reported since 2005 were considered in the review. Screening, data extractions, and synthesis of results were done using pre-tested evidence synthesis methodology and tools. The findings were synthesized manually and the results were presented in narrative form.
Results: After two-stage reviews (title and abstract) and full-text review, 22 SI projects/reports were included in the synthesis. These SIs addressed a wide range of healthcare delivery gaps related to community health promotion; maternal and child health; malaria; pharmaceuticals; women empowerment and health; neglected tropical diseases; strengthening the healthcare delivery system; Community Health Insurance and community empowerment; and m-health. Communities were rarely engaged in the SI process; rather in a majority of the SIs, communities were considered as passive service utilizers and research/evaluation participants and respondents. Overall, community engagement levels in the SI process were weak, and mostly limited to informing and consulting (Figure 1). The lack of community engagement was a major challenge to the sustainability of the SIs.
Conclusion: Despite the end-users of almost the entire SIs being local community groups, many SIs lack substantive and meaningful engagement with the local community in all aspects of the SI creation process. Most SI projects/studies happened through a top-down approach with little or no community engagement. Hence, lessons and good practices documented in this review are limited in quality and diversity. Further primary studies are required to generate evidence on effective strategies, processes, and methodologies for effective community engagement in the SI creation process.
Keywords: social innovation, co-creation, collaborative, community engagement, community involvement, community participation.
Objective: To identify and synthesize empirical evidence surrounding community engagement in SI practices and lessons in healthcare delivery in SSA.
Methods: All types of evidence (published articles and grey literature) published/reported since 2005 were considered in the review. Screening, data extractions, and synthesis of results were done using pre-tested evidence synthesis methodology and tools. The findings were synthesized manually and the results were presented in narrative form.
Results: After two-stage reviews (title and abstract) and full-text review, 22 SI projects/reports were included in the synthesis. These SIs addressed a wide range of healthcare delivery gaps related to community health promotion; maternal and child health; malaria; pharmaceuticals; women empowerment and health; neglected tropical diseases; strengthening the healthcare delivery system; Community Health Insurance and community empowerment; and m-health. Communities were rarely engaged in the SI process; rather in a majority of the SIs, communities were considered as passive service utilizers and research/evaluation participants and respondents. Overall, community engagement levels in the SI process were weak, and mostly limited to informing and consulting (Figure 1). The lack of community engagement was a major challenge to the sustainability of the SIs.
Conclusion: Despite the end-users of almost the entire SIs being local community groups, many SIs lack substantive and meaningful engagement with the local community in all aspects of the SI creation process. Most SI projects/studies happened through a top-down approach with little or no community engagement. Hence, lessons and good practices documented in this review are limited in quality and diversity. Further primary studies are required to generate evidence on effective strategies, processes, and methodologies for effective community engagement in the SI creation process.
Keywords: social innovation, co-creation, collaborative, community engagement, community involvement, community participation.